Palazzo Zen, residence of the Zeno family (or Zen in the Venetian dialect) is a palace in Venice, located in the Cannaregio district, on the Rio di Santa Caterina and with the right side facade facing the Campo dei Gesuiti.
The design of the building does not have a certain attribution. A
decisive role is recognized to the noble and cultured client Pietro Zeno
who, together with his son Francesco, the latter a passionate amateur of
architecture, elaborated a first project by his hand. Very probably
equally important was the contribution given by the Bolognese architect
and theorist Sebastiano Serlio, a friend of the latter and resident from
1528 to 1541 in the lagoon city, where he published the first volumes of
his treatise on architecture (Book IV and Book III). Note how Serlio in
the introduction to Book IV wanted to praise the architectural culture
of Francesco Zeno who had traveled in the East, taking an interest in
the remains of classical buildings and who had a particular interest in
architecture.
The will of the client was to transform the
previous buildings that the family owned into Fondamenta Santa Caterina
with a single architectural project, wanting to create a single large
monumental building that more adequately reflected the power of the
family. The project was then partially modified during construction, due
to the death of both Zenos (1538-39), and completed only in 1555 by the
three heirs: the brothers Catarino the younger, Giovan Battista and
Vincenzo, who they adapted it to their needs by tripartite ownership
(1553).
The facade on the rio, which the designer intended to
recall the colonnaded structures of early Venetian building, is thus
characterized by a dense series of twenty arched windows, alternating
with others with a truncated cusp, and by four blind Renaissance-style
arches. The latter were made to house as many frescoed allegorical
figures that masked the insertion of the flues. Four massive balconies,
decorated with rich Lombard-style marble friezes, overlook the
entrances, enriching the façade. A plaque, affixed by the Municipality,
commemorates the two great fourteenth-century navigators Nicolò and
Antonio Zeno, who probably lived in this place before the building was
built.
The building, according to the historian Carlo Ridolfi
(1648), had the main facade partially frescoed by Andrea Schiavone,
while the one overlooking the campo (with only five window openings) was
completely frescoed by him in collaboration with Jacopo Tintoretto.
Robusti had been the author of the two main subjects: the Fall of Saint
Paul and the Victory over the Genoese fleet by Admiral Carlo Zeno in the
War of Chioggia (1381). These frescoes are now lost, except for the few
fragments by Schiavone himself (depicting other allegories) which can be
seen on the façade facing the Campiello di Sant'Antonio and on the frame
of a window in an internal courtyard. Some fragments of the original
plaster, with a preponderance of reddish colours, could still be seen
recently at the level of the noble floor, near the windows characterized
by solid grilles with a hexagonal motif.
In the Campiello
Sant'Antonio a marble votive capital is also visible, of the
sixteenth-century type, coeval with the palace. Along the cornice that
delimits the roof, a series of decorative bas-relief figures, drawn in
part from classical Renaissance iconography (grotesques) and in part
from the Oriental one (palms and camels), bear witness to the close
commercial and diplomatic relations of the Venetian family with the
Eastern Mediterranean.
The interior which cannot be visited is
used as private apartments, retains large representative rooms, mostly
from the eighteenth century, rich in frescoes (Giovanni Scajaro and
Agostino Mengozzi Colonna), three courtyards corresponding to the three
ancient properties, various wells for rainwater and perhaps in ancient
times also access to the gentle aquifer outcropping on the island, a
turret to spot ships returning to port, and a pretty chapel. A branch of
staircase connects the building to a previous building belonging to the
family adjacent to the Crociferi Hospital (now the IRE Hospice) once
founded with a legacy from the Zenos. It was also used by the family to
attend religious functions in the small Oratorio dei Crociferi (which
can be visited), annexed to the hospital itself, decorated with valuable
paintings by Jacopo Palma il Giovane and Baldassarre dalle Grottesche
(1583-92), with an altarpiece by Flemish Pieter de Coster.
A
twentieth-century elevation on a part of Palazzo Zeno modifies the
linear profile of the building and, making the masonry heavier,
partially caused the foundations to sink.
Other beautiful houses
of the Zenos are found on the opposite bank of the canal, and are
concentrated in Salizada Sceriman. Unfortunately, a beautiful Gothic
courtyard has recently been tampered with, with the ancient houses that
served as a backdrop, to build a modern condominium on the facade of
which the Zeno coat of arms has been inserted, which originally adorned
the access arch to the stream.